


Erin Gilbert: You Can Do This

by vendettadays



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Developing Relationship, F/F, Non-Explicit Sex, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9058957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vendettadays/pseuds/vendettadays
Summary: It started as a one night stand with a strangely weird and wonderful woman with gravity-defying blonde hair. Now, Erin's catching ghosts with her best friend, a woman with big earrings, and that strangely weird and wonderful woman that she tries not to think too much about.





	1. Chapter 1

Flashing lights cut through the smoke spewed out by a fog machine. The rhythmic thump of bass and whine of synthesised music. The masses of moving, sweaty bodies on the dance floor. This was so not the place that Erin wanted to be on a Sunday night, but she gritted her teeth and made herself as small and unobtrusive as she could on her stool at the farthest end of the bar. Hidden in a dark corner and far away from the dancing, grinding and bumping that came with being in the campus club that was full of young, twenty-somethings. And even farther from the flailing limbs and awkward gyrations of her colleagues from the Physics department at Columbia.

A nice, quiet evening in with a glass of red and her newest find from Amazon was what Erin had expected tonight. One reviewer had rated C. McFadden’s new release _Ghosts: Friendly Phantasms or Malevolent Manifestations?_ five stars! But here she was: clutching her purse tightly in one hand and the other on a green cocktail of dubious edibility that had a sludge-like consistency.

Oh, she hated Abby right now. Convincing their colleagues to go clubbing on the weekend before the new semester started was the worst idea that Abby had ever come up with. It was even worse when her middle-aged and almost geriatric colleagues had agreed to go.

Let's go dancing! They said.

It will be fun! They said.

It was less dancing and more one-legged hopping and clapping, which was made all the more traumatising when the Head of Department had joined in. The image of Dr Filmore attempting to boogie with the kids had been seared permanently in her memories.

And of course, Abby had disappeared as soon as they had got into the club, saying something about a soup crisis before giving Erin a slow, dramatic wink. That had been an hour ago and she hadn't seen Abby since.

She stiffened as a large hulking man in a sleeveless shirt brushed against her, unknowingly wiping a sweaty arm on her tweed blazer. That was all the encouragement needed for her to down the rest of her drink, hoping the alcohol content was high enough to dull the trauma of being here. Erin’s eyes watered and she doubled over, coughs wracking her body as the liquid singed her throat and settled uncomfortably in her empty stomach. The man moved away quickly as she fumbled for something to stop the burn. Someone passed her a bottle of water and she opened the bottle and drank it in two large gulps.

Erin gasped, slamming the empty bottle down. She cringed at the sight of herself in the mirror behind the bar. Her face was red and blotchy from coughing; her fringe stuck to her forehead and her hair was frizzy from the moist heat inside the Club. She looked like she had run a marathon without having done anything at all. She wanted to leave. No, she needed to leave. She looked over to her colleagues who were still bobbing along to the music under the flashing lights and sighed.

‘Come here often?’

Erin jumped in her seat at the sultry voice that seemed to travel above the heavy bass line. To her right, two stools down sat a woman with gravity-defying, floppy blonde hair that looked perfectly coiffed and straight out of bed effortless all at the same time. Erin took in the worn leather jacket, paint-splattered overalls and Doc Martin clad feet propped up against a stool and concluded that this eccentrically attractive woman was not talking to her. 

The woman’s eyes were wide and unblinking in an unsettling stare that made Erin squirm in her seat. Erin checked behind, then to her left, even snuck a glance at the bartender pouring drinks in front of her before she realised that this woman with the slightly mad glimmer in her blue eyes was really talking to her. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, who are you?’

The woman’s grin grew, deepening the dimples above the corner of her lips as she stood up and sauntered the two steps to sit next to Erin, hand outstretched. ‘Holtzmann.’

Erin grasped Holtzmann’s fingers limply, eyes traveling from the yellow glasses resting on Holtzmann’s head to her quirked lips, down the defined line of her jaw to the exposed hollow of her throat where Erin lingered a moment too long to be polite. She wrenched her gaze back up, face flushing with renewed heat from being caught checking out a complete stranger.

‘Erin.’ She let go of Holtzmann, but she didn’t know what to do with her hands, which fluttered between clasping together and resting against the sticky bar top. She really needed something to hold onto. Her purse was forgotten on her lap.

‘It's nice to meet you.’

‘Yeah, nice to meet you too.’

They sat without talking as the music played around them in the club. Erin fiddled with her fingers, conscious of Holtzmann watching her. It was a relief when the bartender dropped by with another cocktail for her and a beer for Holtzmann.

‘Cheers!’ Holtzmann tapped her beer against Erin's glass and took a hearty pull. ‘So you never answered my question.’

‘My friend thought it would be a great idea to bring my colleagues here. They’re academics, really top academics like really old academics, so no, I don’t come here often. Actually, I don’t really go out at all. I mean out to places like these not that I don’t go out at all, because that would be some crazy agoraphobia, not that I’m saying that I am and, yeah, that's why I'm here...’

Heat crept along the back of Erin’s neck, mortified that she had babbled about her lack of social like to a stranger. Foregoing her straw Erin drank her cocktail straight from the glass, avoiding Holtzmann and the way she seemed so at ease while all Erin felt was dizzying, discomfort. Though that might have been the alcohol.

‘Academics are the best kind of people to let loose. Look at that guy in the sweater vest there: way too much teeth and hip thrusting, but that’s his thing and he’s loving it.’

Erin winced at the person Holtzmann had pointed out. Phil was a really unattractive dancer. ‘It feels so wrong that I used to want to date him.’

‘Whaaat?’ Holtzmann’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. ‘How’d that go? Was he too rigid?’

‘It never really started in the first place. I went to lunch with him a few times and thought he liked me.’ Erin waved down the bartender for a top up. ‘Turns out he didn’t and I only found out when he introduced me to his girlfriend. Surprise!’

‘That’s his loss, because I would date you.’ Holtzmann seemed completely sincere and Erin wished that it were true. It wasn’t like there was a line of people waiting to date her.

‘You don’t have to pretend to comfort me. It was a long time ago like it happened last week, so completely forgotten.’

Holtzmann raised an eyebrow.

‘She’s called Phyllis and specialises in astrophysics and cosmology. She has ten publications and is worshipped in her field.’

‘Yeah, but Phyllis goes out with Phil and she probably dances like him.’

‘She’s probably great at dancing and better than me. She probably knows how to twerk.’

‘I bet you’re more of a hip-swaying type, rocking to your own beat. I can tell from the world’s tiniest bow on your shirt and the heels you’re wearing.’ Holtzmann winked at Erin as she brought her beer to her lips.

‘Thanks, I guess.’ Erin blushed and finished her drink. She knew her clothes were too sexy for academia, but it felt good that Holtzmann seemed to think so too. She could do this: harmless flirting with a stranger. No one would have to know and if it ended in embarrassment, at least Abby wasn’t around to watch that disaster.

That was until the glimmer in Holtzmann’s eyes turned wild as the music changed and before Erin knew, she was pulled out of her seat and towards the dance floor with Holtzmann gripping her hand.

‘What are you doing?’

‘What do you think? You, me, an absolute classic song, get my drift?’

‘No, no, I'm not dancing!’ Erin shook her head, but Holtzmann grinned over her shoulder, weaving them in and out between people.

Erin threw her head back and laughed when they got to the dance floor as the lyrics started. It was the dorkiest thing that Erin had ever seen: Holtzmann pretending to hold a microphone, dancing up and down their three feet of unobstructed dance floor, miming the lyrics to DeBarge. Her laugh died in her throat when Holtzmann turned to her, long slow strides matching the cheesy 80s pop song as she sidled closer, hands out in front like she was pulling an imaginary rope.

Her body jolted as Holtzmann slid her hands onto Erin’s waist and her nerves flared like they were on fire. Erin held her breath as Holtzmann’s hands moved down to her hips and guided her hips in time to the music, moving Erin fluidly like she was an extension of her own body.

‘See? Hip swaying. You’ve proved my hypothesis correct.’

‘You’re not so bad at this yourself.’

‘I have Danish Art School to thank for that. I majored in experimental, 80s discotheque ballet with a minor in traditional fine art.’

‘That explains the paints on your overalls.’

Holtzmann shrugged and moved Erin closer. ‘Sure.’

The whisper of space between them got smaller as Erin found the courage to loop her arms around Holtzmann’s neck. Her vision swam as they danced, but the only thing she could focus on was the way her skin tingled beneath her clothes from the close press of Holtzmann’s body against hers and the tickle of Holtzmann’s breath, hot against her neck. Erin’s eye drifted to Holtzmann’s mouth and, if the smirk was anything to go by, they were thinking the same thing.

Maybe it was the alcohol loosening her inhibitions. It was definitely the alcohol, because Erin Gilbert didn’t do this. She didn’t go to clubs and never went out on Sunday nights. She didn’t get hit on by people and definitely not by strangely weird and wonderful-looking women that didn’t seem to care that her go-to moves consisted of shoulder shrugs and feet tapping.

Erin tilted her head down and brushed her lips against Holtzmann’s. God, they really were as soft as they looked. She played with the fine hairs at the back of Holtzmann’s neck, teasing them between her fingertips as she deepened the kiss and brought them closer.

The grip on her shoulders tightened and she felt Holtzmann’s lips move into a smile. She drew back breathless and elated that she had read the signs right.

She could do this.

***

Erin grabbed Holtzmann’s jacket the moment the apartment door closed and pushed her against it. Her mouth missed Holtzmann’s lips and landed on her cheek instead. Sober Erin would have been embarrassed, but with the way Holtzmann was tugging her shirt from where it was tucked into her skirt and the way Holtzmann kissed, messy and desperate, she really couldn’t care.

She closed her eyes and released a shuddering breath as Holtzmann nipped along her jaw line, detouring with a brush of her lips against Erin’s ear before she traversed down Erin’s neck. Her breath caught in her throat and melted into a moan, as Holtzmann bit the skin between her shoulder and neck that it hurt. That was new. Intriguing. She slipped her thigh between Holtzmann’s legs, delighting in the low groan that filled her ears and how Holtzmann surged forward and captured her in a hard kiss that sent a bolt straight to her gut.

Her tweed blazer ended up by the door as Holtzmann steered them both further into the apartment without breaking their kiss. Somewhere between Holtzmann losing her jacket and the straps of her overalls coming undone that it trailed along the carpeted floor, Erin kicked her heels off and buried her hands into Holtzmann’s hair, loosening the pins that held her hair up.

Erin’s back hit the wall behind her and she broke way from Holtzmann, lips swollen and breathing heavily as she tried to stop her head from spinning. One by one the buttons of her shirt were undone and the focused expression on Holtzmann’s face got more manic with every inch of revealed skin. She bit her lip, almost breaking skin, unable to look away from Holtzmann’s eyes as Holtzmann moved her hand, palm caressing Erin’s ass as she reached round to the back of her skirt and slowly unzipped her skirt.

‘You carry a lot of tension in your shoulders.’ Her skirt fell to the floor.

‘I get told that a lot.’ Nimble fingers teased the edge of her underwear.

‘I can help with that.’

Erin’s mouth went dry when Holtzmann dropped to her knees, pulling her underwear down as she went. Holtzmann’s lips grazed a path down her stomach, paying particular attention to the bump of her hip bone, nipping and sucking until an intense throbbing settled between her legs that needed more than the caress of Holtzmann’s fingertips on the inside of her thigh.

‘Is this okay?’ Holtzmann lifted Erin’s left leg and hooked it over her shoulder.

‘Fuck, yes, this is more than okay.’

***

The slide of smooth sheets beneath her bare skin was the first thing Erin noticed as she woke up, followed by a dull headache and a delicious ache in her muscles that was not an everyday occurrence for her. Erin shot up from bed at the loud crash and muffled curse.

Erin’s heart sank when she saw Holtzmann on the floor, halfway dressed, her overalls on and her head trapped inside her green, crop top.

‘Damn shirt, where is the damn hole?’ Holtzmann gasped for air as her head emerged from her crop top. ‘Did I wake you?’

‘No, no, I’m an early riser, early bird gets the worm and all that.’

‘Erin?’

She covered her face with her comforter. She wasn’t going to cry, nope, not going to cry. It was a one-night stand, not marriage. God, she was an idiot. Erin wheezed as she felt Holtzmann climb on top of her and covered her entire body, so that they mirrored. ‘Holtzmann, I can’t breath.’

Erin blinked as the comforter was lifted off her face. Holtzmann stared down at her, a severe frown on her brow and a downturned pout that was so out of place after last night’s grins and smirks. She looked away to the side, but calloused fingertips lifted her chin up and she had no choice but to look at Holtzmann.

‘I’m not sneaking out on you.’

‘You’re not?’

‘Nope.’ Holtzmann folded her arms on top of Erin’s chest and rested her chin on her linked hands. ‘I’m starting a new job today and they have “work hours”, so I can’t be late.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Holtzmann lowered her voice and spoke in a slow, deep timbre that sounded frighteningly similar to Dr Filmore. ‘I’ve been told that I am expected to arrive at work on time and not to besmirch the name of this fine institution.’

She made a face like keeping normal hours offended her. Erin laughed and the serious expression on Holtzmann’s face disappeared, replaced by an easy-going smile.

‘But that does mean that I have leave to get ready.’ Holtzmann dropped a kiss on Erin’s cheek and got up. She grabbed her leather jacket and mimed a telephone with her hand. ‘Call me.’

‘I don’t have your number.’ Erin sat up, blushing when her comforter slid down to reveal her naked chest. She quickly covered herself, but couldn’t stop the smile on her face when she noticed how Holtzmann’s eyes strayed. That was a confidence boost she had not been expecting on a Monday morning.

‘Check. You definitely do.’ Holtzmann gave her a two-finger salute and a final wink before walking out of the room.

The moment the door slammed shut, Erin jumped out of bed, pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that she had lying around and went looking for her cell. She checked for a new contact, but there was no new entry under ‘H’ or any other names that weren’t the seven contacts that she already had. There were no scraps of paper in her blazer’s pockets or in her bag with a hastily scribbled number. The magnetic notice board on her fridge sported a new radiation trefoil with a heart in the middle, but was devoid of digits.

Erin sat down on her couch and signed. She was about to congratulate herself on her stupidity, for falling for a line when she saw a black mark on the inside of her thigh, hidden just under the edge of her shorts.

***

‘Where were you last night?’ Abby threw her arms up as Erin walked into their shared, shoe box-sized office. ‘I was waiting for you for you outside Zhu’s!’

‘Saying you have a soup crisis is not the same as telling me that you’re leaving.’

‘Uh, when do I ever have a soup crisis? I thought it would have been obvious.’

Erin rolled her eyes and unpacked her briefcase, shuffling papers into a neat pile and ignoring Abby. ‘You have a problem with the Chinese place nearly every day.’

‘Not every day, just most days and don’t change the subject.’ Abby sat down on the corner of Erin’s desk with her arms crossed. ‘Where were you last night?’

‘I was at the club.’

‘Seriously? I thought you’d gone home when you didn’t turn up.’

‘I did go home.’ Erin focused on rearranging the pens on her desk, ordering them by brand, most used and size. She wasn’t going to say it. No. Not going to say it – ‘Eventually.’

‘Eventually? Please don’t tell me you left with Phil!’

‘No! I didn’t leave with Phil! And get off my desk!’

‘Thank God! I heard that Phyllis has a mean right hook.’ Abby sighed and settled more comfortably on Erin’s desk. ‘You look tired. What time did you leave anyway?’

‘I didn’t sleep very well.’ Erin shrugged and ducked her head.

Liar. Complete lie. She had slept very well and had not slept enough. But Abby didn’t need to know the in and out of _why_ she hadn’t slept enough.

‘Okay and what time did you leave?’

‘I left at a reasonable time on a Sunday evening.’

‘'That being?’

‘Boss?’ Kevin stuck his head into the room and Erin breathed out in relief. It wasn’t over but to be continued from the look that Abby gave her. ‘There’s a Hillian Jolt Smann to see you.’

That must have been the new Engineer that the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute had loaned to Columbia. More like foisted onto Columbia and shoved into their tiny office, according to what Abby had told her, but they were happy to take this person. Apparently, there had been an incident. Something to with the unsanctioned use of plutonium, a really big centrifuge, and a blowtorch that had resulted in a comatose CERN employee who just so happened to have been a Columbia alumni.

It must have been bad if the Institute was able to blackmail Dr Filmore into taking on this Engineer.

‘I'm going to need you to try a little harder Kev. It’s Jillian Holtzmann.’

Erin’s eyes widened at the name. No, it can’t be? Life couldn’t be this cruel. The back of her neck prickled as Kevin called the person in. There were probably tonnes of Holtzmanns out there and it can’t have been the Holtzmann she knew. They did different things.

‘Are you okay? You’re all sweaty.’

‘I’m fine.’ She fanned herself and took off her jacket.

Abby straightened up and Erin ducked behind her computer screen as the person walked in. She braced herself as Abby went through the introductions.

‘And this.’ Abby not-so-subtly kicked Erin’s chair. ‘This is Erin Gilbert. She’s an expert on quantum physics.’

Erin peeked over the top of her computer screen like it was a parapet. There was a frown on Holtzman’s face, but the moment she caught sight of Erin it disappeared, replaced by a wide smile. Holtzmann walked straight over to Erin’s desk, hand held out like she had done last night and grasped Erin’s tightly.

‘Did you find it?’ She could only nod, cheeks flushing.

‘I-I thought you were an artist?’

‘Nope, one-hundred percent engineer.’

‘You know each other?’ Abby looked between the Erin and Holtzmann.

‘In the biblical sense.’ Holtzmann winked and Abby squawked.

‘You had sex! When? You have some explaining to do.’

Erin’s mouth moved, but no sound came out as her cheeks heated. She was torn between unbearably aroused at the sight of Holtzmann biting her lip and wishing that the atoms of the floor would rearrange, so that it could swallow her whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A year and seven months and finally something! And not a moment too late. Here's to a better 2017.
> 
> (Dancing: inspired by my colleagues at my work's Christmas party.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin didn’t really know how to handle Holtzmann now that they shared an office.

Erin didn’t really know how to handle Holtzmann now that they shared an office. A very tiny office that only had enough breathing space for two occupants. Kevin didn’t count since he sat in the hallway with a foldable desk and chair that was packed away every night. Three people was pushing it and Erin’s lungs felt the lack of air on a daily basis, most often when she caught Holtzmann watching her from her corner of clutter and organized mess. Her chest would tighten and images from that night would distract her from whatever it was she was doing.

Like now: She had looked up from reading Dr Venkman’s most recently published paper on _The Parapsychology of the Deathless Mind or In Other Words, Ghosts_ to find Holtzmann staring at her, blue eyes glazed over, chin resting in one hand and a blowtorch in the other. A blowtorch that was setting their office plant on fire.

‘Holtzmann!’ Erin snapped her fingers, but she gazed on. ‘Holtz!’

‘Hmm?’

‘Fire!’

Holtzmann turned lazily to where their ficus was burning into firewood and for a moment Erin thought she would just watch the flames, but instead she reached under her desk for the fire extinguisher and the fire was out with a few puffs of foam. Great. Disaster averted, but their tiny office smelled like a bonfire and their only window had been sealed shut to keep the bees from flying in. A request that Erin now regretted making.

‘This can’t go on.’ Erin stood up and shuffled the paper into order. They needed a bigger office, but it was getting harder to justify to the department why they even existed in the first place, let alone justify why they needed to expand. ‘We need to hit this right on the head.’

Holtzmann stepped over various contraptions, a large silver duffle and bounded over to Erin. She slapped her hands on top of the desk and leaned in close until they were almost nose-to-nose. ‘I agree. _This_ really cannot go on.’

Black spots dotted Erin’s vision, overwhelmed by Holtzmann’s enthusiasm for new office spaces, but mostly from how easy it would be for her to tip forward, to close the mere centimeters between them and press a kiss against Holtzmann’s lips. A gentle touch to her shoulder jolted her out of her thoughts and she gasped loudly as air filled her chest. The world focused and the light-headedness from imagining Holtzmann, undressed and lying on top of her desk disappeared.

‘Damn, Gilbert. You need to breathe.’

‘Yeah, breathing is good.’ Erin nodded and stepped back, putting some space between her and Holtzmann. She concentrated on breathing in and out, counting the number of breaths she drew in and the seconds she breathed out, and ran through basic calculations to the first theory that came to mind. Her mind whirred away as she appraised the room, ignoring Holtzmann’s concern as she worked out the approximate size of their office.

If the room was 3 meters in length, 2 meters in width, and 3 meters in height that would make the room volume 36m3. She knew the density of air at sea level was 1.3kg/m3 give or take a few grams per cubic meter. So multiply that and the volume meant that their office had a grand total mass of air of 46.8kg. That was if it was at sea level! Erin frowned and shoved her papers into her briefcase. The calculation wasn’t perfect. She hadn’t worked out the exact percentages of the components that were in the air: oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, nitrogen, and other gases depending on what Kevin had eaten for lunch that day. There were so many other variables to take into account like temperature, humidity, and where the campus was in terms of sea level. But even without considering all of this, it was more than enough to make her blood boil.

She turned to Holtzmann who flinched, marched round her desk and grasped onto Holtzmann’s forearm. ‘You’re right, Holtz. We need to breathe and we are going to sort this out right now!’

‘N-now?’

‘Yes. Now. You and me.’ Erin slipped her hand into Holtzmann’s and tugged her out of the door. In her excitement, it hadn’t even occurred to her that this was the first time she had touched Holtzmann since that night almost two months ago. ‘We need to find Abby too.’

‘I like Abby, but I really don’t think she’s into women.’

‘Yeah, I know that.’

That was odd. Erin reviewed the conversation in her head, but couldn’t figure out where the sudden change of topic had come from. Abby liking or not liking women had nothing to do with this. Holtzmann’s mind worked in ways that defied Erin’s logic and systematic view of the world.

She peeked over her shoulder as she continued down the corridor and saw Holtzmann’s confusion, and squeezed her hand to reassure her. ‘We need Abby with us so we can present a united front about why we need a new office.’

The wrinkle on Holtzmann’s forehead deepened, slightly different from the one that Erin normally saw when she was working on a new invention, only to disappear like it had never appeared. Holtzmann’s hold on her hand loosened a little. ‘Duh. That was what I was talking about.’

They turned the corner and walked towards the double doors that led out of the building. She could just about see Abby through the door’s paned glass, gesticulating wildly with her arms and shaking a tub of something at someone. She marched on with renewed vigor, dragging Holtzmann along with her and ignoring the feeling that she had missed something entirely.

***

Erin adjusted her skirt, pulling the brown fabric down so that it covered her thigh more. The academia-chic style had it problems like deceptively short skirts that rode up to reveal an uncomfortable amount of leg was one of them. If she had known that she was going to see Dr Filmore today she would have worn the other brown skirt she had, because the idea of flashing Dr Filmore would be the tsunami to their ground-shaking disaster that was their meeting. Damn her impulsiveness.

The last time she had been inside his office was the morning of her first lecture in the small hall. That meeting was the most nerve-wracking fifteen minutes of her life. If it had lasted a minute longer she would have broken out in hives.

But this? Erin smiled tightly up at Dr Filmore and laid her hands on her knees. Abby was next to her, almost consumed whole by the plush cushions of the armchair she was sat in and holding onto a pot of clear soup with a slither of wonton pastry floating inside. Then there was Holtzmann on the end, arms folded behind her head and booted feet on top the hard oak desk. This was an allergy-inducing meeting of anaphylactic shock level.

Dr Filmore leaned forward and regarded Erin with pursed lips, fingertips touching to form a steeple. She held her breath and readied herself for a berating.

‘I really think you are an asset to modern physics, Dr Gilbert.’

Pride flooded her body and she straightened up in her seat. ‘Thank you, you have no idea what that means to me. I really believe that I can change the field with—’

‘But barging into my office _without_ an appointment, and demanding that you and your,’ he waved at Abby and Holtzmann. ‘…Your colleagues are given a bigger office is not the behavior I would expect of a member of this institution.

‘Need I remind you that the window for applying for tenure is approaching and we at Colombia University only accept candidates who have an appreciation and understanding of the fine work we do here, and are serious about the quality of work that is produced in reputable publications and from reputable academics.’

He frowned at her briefcase propped against her chair leg and where Dr Venkman’s article stuck out of the opened top. Erin’s shoulders sagged under the weight of Dr Filmore’s attention and she stared at her shoes.

‘Aren’t you being a bit harsh here?’ said Abby, rising in her defense, but Erin wished that she hadn’t. Her best friend was prone to throwing things in frustration and they were all within range of that tub of soup.

‘I don’t think I am being harsh enough, Dr Yates. May I ask what it is you’ve been working on this past year?’

‘I am glad you asked, thank you very much. I have been developing a device that will detect trace amounts of psychokinetic energy within the immediate locale where paranormal activity has taken place. Of course, the sensitivity levels will need to be adjusted, but from the controlled experiments that I have been conducting in the campus’ Brinley Gást History Library it seems to be working.’ Abby turned to Holtzmann and high-fived her. ‘Dr Holtzmann has been assisting me in making this device more mobile since she arrived. We will soon be able to widen our test area.’

Abby settled into her armchair with a satisfied huff, arms crossed over her chest.

How had Erin missed this project? They shared an office together and not once in the last two months had she noticed Abby and Holtzmann working together. Her hands balled into fists and Erin tamped down on the urge to tap her foot. Maybe if she had been less focused on avoiding Holtzmann she would have known sooner? Even helped with the project, because it was the first time she had heard about it. Erin swallowed down the sudden burning in her chest. Though that could have been her indigestion flaring up.

‘Psychokinetic energy?’

‘Bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? I’ve started using “PKE” for short.’ Abby helpfully added and gestured to Erin. ‘We wouldn’t be anywhere close to having a functioning device without Dr Gilbert’s invaluable input too. She was the one who spent nights working out the formulae for the cross-dimensional manifold equation to calculate the levels of spectral particles needed in the atmosphere for the meter to get a reading.’

‘So this is what you have used the university’s funding for,’ said Dr Filmore quietly, breaking the seconds of silence that followed Abby’s explanation.

‘Yes. It’s groundbreaking work.’

‘Groundbreaking is not the word that I would be using.’ Dr Filmore stood up abruptly, signaling an end to their meeting. ‘You and Dr Gilbert were given this funding to benefit this institution with credible and worthwhile studies into the field of physics.’

The ire in Erin’s chest intensified as the head of department stared down at her. ‘Which is what we have been doing!’

‘No, what you _have_ been doing is wasting my time, wasting the department’s money on ridiculous and fictitious notions. Paranormal activity? Spectral particles?’ He shook his head, mouth pressed tightly into a thin line. ‘You can rest assured that from tomorrow onwards that I am going to have every single piece of research and academic activity investigated. I really shouldn’t have expected any less from a Princeton graduate—’

‘Hey! That was uncalled for!’

Erin turned, nearly spraining her neck from how quickly she moved and her mouth fell open at Holtzmann’s outburst. Holtzmann who had remained silent throughout the meeting was standing, feet a shoulder-width apart like she was ready to tackle Dr Filmore to the ground.

From this angle Erin had an unobstructed view of Holtzmann. She never appreciated more than now the way Holtzmann wore her grey slacks and matching vest that pinched in at her waist just enough to draw attention. She gulped at how the muscles in Holtzmann’s forearm jumped as she clenched her fist. Apparently, rolled up shirtsleeves and funky, red brogues were kind of her thing.

‘Dr Holtzmann, let’s have a word. In private.’

A sharp nudge to her side from Abby and Erin was out of her chair. Before she left, she laid a hand on Holtzmann’s shoulder. ‘We’ll wait for you back in the office.’

The not-quite smile from Holtzmann didn’t help alleviate the worry that Erin had, or shake the feeling that she had just put in motion something that she should have left alone.

***

The distance from the door to Abby’s desk was five normal-spaced footsteps. From the moment she and Abby had got back she had paced a total number of 1500 steps. It would have done wonders for her Fitbit if the electromagnetic pulse from Holtzmann’s psychokinetic-acceleration-displacement-field generator hadn’t blown out the electrics.

‘Stop pacing,’ said Abby without looking up from her laptop. ‘You’re wearing the carpet thin and from that conversation, I really don’t think our head of department will replace it.’

The tension in Erin’s muscles grew, twisting her insides like the coils of a spring and she settled into her chair heavily. She curled her hands into fists, pressing her nails hard into her palms then forcibly extending her fingers, stretching each digit to their full extent until her ligaments strained.

Abby closed her laptop with a snap. ‘What the hell, Erin?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why did you pull us into a meeting with Dr Fiddle Less? You know what he’s like!’

Erin groaned and let her head fall against the back of her chair. ‘You know why.’

‘What’s wrong with here?’

Three desks were crammed into the room with only a foot of space between. They had to think of space saving hacks just so they could utilize all the space. Abby’s part of the room was overflowing with texts and scraps of papers scribbled with theories. Erin’s was organized and everything had a place, but the bookshelves behind her always teetered on the verge of collapsing. Holtzmann’s space was a careful chaos of wires, Pringle tubes and worryingly, a metal canister with a large radioactive trefoil on.

Abby shrugged and conceded. ‘I see your point.’

‘I messed up. I should have spoke to you first, but a new office has been long overdue and it’s hard to breathe with Holtzmann—’ Erin stopped, teeth clacking together as she shut her mouth.

‘Setting things on fire, I know.’ Abby finished for her and glanced at their charred ficus.

‘Yeah, of course, but it would be terrible if Holtz got a disciplinary because of me.’ The memory of Holtzmann defending her caused a flutter in her stomach. ‘Maybe we should focus on non-paranormal related physics for a while, work on some serious physics.’

‘No! We can’t be discouraged because of one set back.’ Abby scoffed. ‘And what is “serious physics” anyway? What we do is serious.’

‘I know that, but we could lose our jobs and I don’t want that.’ Being financially stable mattered to her and if she lost her post, all those years of hard work and ass kissing would have been for nothing. ‘I want to do what we’ve been doing, but eventually with tenure.’

‘We are on the edge of something big. I can feel it, Erin.’ Abby got up and shimmied along the gap to Erin’s desk. ‘I wasn’t lying earlier. The PKE meter works! We just need to test it out in the field with the right conditions.’

‘I don’t know, Abby.’ Erin crossed her arms and shook her head, remembering what Abby had said during the meeting. ‘You said you needed that equation for a new fridge freezer not for the meter! What if it doesn’t work?’

‘You of all people know how interchangeable mathematics are. One missing double summation can wreak havoc on the optimum temperature of a fridge just as much as it can ruin the detection radius of the PKE meter.’

She wasn’t convinced. There was no way that they could actually find a ghost, but she couldn’t deny the thrum of excitement that went through her at the idea of trying.

‘Come on, Erin! This is what we’ve been working towards ever since we were kids. I’ve handed out some flyers with our number, so we can test the meter as soon as someone calls with a haunting.’

The quick clip clop of someone’s shoes echoed down the hallway towards their open office distracted Erin from coming up with a response. She jumped out of her seat when Holtzmann strode in, hands deep inside the pockets of her slacks. No grin, not even a twinkle of mischief in her eyes that she associated with a Holtzmann up to no good.

She rushed over and held onto Holtzmann’s forearms. ‘What happened?’

Holtzmann heaved a sigh and shook her head. ‘We gotta pack up.’

‘No, they can’t do that.’ Erin’s heart stilled. She took a step back, but Holtzmann held onto her hands tightly.

Holtzmann’s mouth twitched at the corners, morphing into a full-blown grin that revealed her teeth. ‘We have to pack, because we’re moving!’

She heard Abby scream with joy behind her, and in front of her Holtzmann laughed with her head tipped back. Erin’s jaw moved up and down; her words caught in her throat as her mind tried to gain control of her body again.

‘I think you broke Erin.’

‘Holtz!’ Erin shrugged out of Holtzmann’s hold and slapped her lightly on the arm.

‘Ow!’ cried Holtzmann with a wink, rubbing at the spot she got hit and pretending that it hurt when Erin knew that it didn’t. ‘Save that energy for the heavy lifting, Gilbert!’

***

Erin stared at her computer screen and pointedly ignored Holtzmann spinning on a swivel chair next to her, crunching away at a tube of Pringles.

‘You’re not still angry with me?’ Holtzmann slouched down and rested her chin on top of the chair’s backrest. ‘Please don’t be angry with me.’

The tube of Pringles appeared in front of Erin, blocking the article she was trying to write for the _American Institute of Physics_. This was the tenth article she had written for the journal. She hoped that it would be the first one they would not reject. The last one she’d sent, they had mailed back the manuscript with a post-it note asking her to stop. At least they were getting it. For a long time she had thought that she had been mailing it to the wrong address.

‘Have a chip. You can’t say “no” to these salty parabolas.’

‘No.’ Erin pushed the tube away. ‘And I am angry with you.’

From the corner of her eyes, Erin saw Holtzmann’s bottom lip push out into a pout. She wheeled herself closer to Erin until her knees touched the side of her leg. ‘I’m sorry. Please forgive me. It’s been a whole three days and you haven’t spoken to me since you shoved a box of books for me to carry.’

How was she supposed to resist that? ‘Fine. I accept your apology.’

Holtzmann threw her arms up, showering chips around them as she span on her chair, and Erin had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop smiling. The word “adorable” rose to mind and her face grew hot at the thought.

‘What did you have to do?’ There must have been a catch to this arrangement. No way would their head of department allow them to move without something in return. Erin had learned the hard way that there were no free lunches in the world of academia. She whispered, ‘Did you promise him your firstborn?’

Laughter burst from Holtzmann and Erin’s blush deepened at how good she looked when she laughed. The bigger workspace hadn’t really helped that much with the oxygen levels, not when Holtzmann still acted the way she did with her.

‘No ones getting Chili the chinchilla!’ Holtzmann sobered up and frowned as she shrugged. ‘I have to teach undergrad labs once a week until the next semester.’

‘That could be fun. Teaching impressionable young minds about physics.’

Holtzmann made a face like she disagreed. ‘Lab safety is an impediment to creativity and innovation. It’s for dudes.’

That might have been the case for Holtzmann and Erin wasn’t going to say otherwise. To each their own. Although, she wouldn’t have minded a warning about which wires were live and confirmation that the microwave stilled emitted microwaves and not beta waves. Her lunches from Zhu’s were already radioactive enough.

‘I have to keep office hours too.’ Holtzmann was so disgruntled at the idea that Erin placed a hand on her knee before the nerves got to her. The smile she got was worth it. ‘But getting this place is worth the boring office hours.’

‘Thank you,’ said Erin quietly, remembering what Holtzmann had done.

‘You don’t have to thank me. It’s about time you guys got a bigger office.’

‘I mean, thank you for standing up for me.’ She withdrew her hand and rubbed her knuckles with her fingers, cracking the joints until they popped and clicked. ‘It means a lot to have more than one supporter.’

Back in high school Ghost Girl had only Abby, the new girl who transferred halfway through the year and demanded to be swirlied with Erin in solidarity. Even now with a Ph.D. in experimental particle physics, she was a pariah amongst her colleagues.

Holtzmann’s hand covered hers, stilling her anxious fingers with a gentle squeeze. Erin looked up, a soft sigh escaping from her as a callused thumb brushed soothing circles on the inside of her wrist. That severe dip between Holtzmann’s brows was present again, the same one that she had seen from the morning after their one night together. Erin had learned that it only appeared when Holtzmann was absolute serious about what she was talking about, which were few and far between.

The quiet stretched between them, wrapping Erin in a bubble that she was unwilling to break out of as she watched the subtle changes to the expressions that flickered across Holtzmann’s face. Seconds elongated to minutes until she lost count of the number of circles drawn onto her skin. It calmed the tumultuous thoughts that had been swirling inside her mind for the last few days like a riptide that threatened to pull her under.

Holtzmann worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she focused on Erin’s mouth, contemplating something that Erin could only hope for.

Erin’s heart thudded in her ears when Holtzmann brought her wrist to her lips and laid the barest of kisses upon her skin, one that was as chaste as it was capturing. The anxiety of the last few days, from questioning whether she was good enough at what she did, to the internal war between wanting to be accepted in her field and wanting to study what she wanted burnt away like the fog on a winter’s morning by the sun. Instead, it was replaced by a coursing need from every little kiss placed on the inside of her wrist and a gravitational force that pulled Erin in whether she wanted it or not.

Her skin tingled where they touched. The palm of her hand cupped Holtzmann’s face, resting perfectly against the arch of her cheekbones as her fingers threaded into blonde hair. A shiver went through her body as Holtzmann let her close the gap with a nudging pull.

This was different from their first kiss and the ones that followed into the night they'd shared together. Those were fueled by a heated desire born from the press of their bodies in a crowded club, from sharp gasps brought forth by meaningful touches, and for Erin the excitement of doing something so outside the realm of her normal and not being rejected for it. This was soft and careful, hesitant and gentle that made Erin’s chest ache and hands shake. It was an accumulation of two months of Holtzmann’s watching and Erin’s avoidance of bringing up that night. She had never known the press of lips to feel like this.

Holtzmann pulled back, eyes wide and dazed, and rested her forehead against Erin’s. ‘Wow.’

Erin could only agree as she angled her head and moved in again. A knock stopped her and she jerked backwards, feeling Holtzmann’s absence acutely as she skated across the room on her wheeled chair.

A woman with big earrings stood by the door. ‘Sorry, I can come back if I’m interrupting something?’

‘No, no, we’re just finishing.’ Erin coughed and walked back to her desk. ‘Ma’am, if you’re looking for the laundry room it’s down the hall on the left.’

‘Oh, your receptionist told me to come right in.’ The woman walked in, her hand bag swinging as she looked around. ‘Fun fact, this building was built on the remains of a Neolithic celestial observatory, did you know that?’

‘Um, no, I didn’t.’

‘Also, a ghost chased me.’ The woman said, fishing one of Abby’s green flyers out of her handbag.

Holtzmann’s eyes grew large and Erin’s mouth fell open.

‘What’s this about a ghost?’ asked Abby as she walked into the room with their lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to correct my (atrocious) attempts at mathematics or ignore it entirely. Basic arithmetic confounds me.
> 
> This came as a surprise since I hadn't intended it to be more than a one shot, but here it is and hope you enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

‘So the Brinley Gást library was built on the remains of a witch burning site, which is why no one enters the section about secular paganism,’ said the woman with the big earrings, who had introduced herself as Patty.

The four of them walked quickly to the library. Abby and Holtzmann buzzed with energy, excited from the moment Patty had started explaining about the ghost she’d seen while in the stacks of the old history library. Erin was less enthusiastic about the idea. She fiddled with the flashlight in her hand. What if they found it? What if it followed her home? The faculty would lose their marbles if they found out what they were up to after only days of being told that their research activities were being audited. She didn’t know what she could not handle more: another haunting at her age or losing her job. Both, she could not handle both, thought Erin.

‘I knew we were onto something with the PKE meter!’ Abby yelled over the rattle of Holtzmann’s cart, piled high with various machines connected by meters of different colored wires and, frighteningly enough, a metal tube that looked like an anti-tank rocket launcher. In among the different contraptions Erin swore she saw a mini fridge.

‘The library’s closed, but I got a key to one of the side entrances.’ Patty fished out a large cast-iron skeleton key from the pocket of her jean jacket.

For some reason the History library was the only library on campus that closed at the first sign of darkness. When Erin had first joined Columbia someone had told her the reasons, but she couldn’t remember now. There had never been a need to visit any other library but the Science Library on their end of campus. Whenever she did pass the famed or infamous (she never knew the difference) Brinley Gást library it had always exuded an aura of malignance, and Erin had learned from a very early age to heed those gut feelings.

Erin stopped at the bottom step of the library and looked up at the centuries-old building. Next to her, Holtzmann whistled in appreciation.

In the mid-autumn gloom she could understand why no one, not even the history students, wanted to study here at night. A high arched window with stonework tracery dominated the front and towered above anyone standing beneath it. The towers and miniature spires that decorated the top reminded Erin of the churches in Europe, austere and formidable in all its Gothic glory. In the day it might even have looked beautiful, and Erin imagined the architecture and art students studying the lines of dirt-stained limestone, drawing the sweeping curves of arches and packing up before the sun went down. Before the shadows grew too dark and long for it to be comfortable in the presence of something so incredibly gloomy.

‘Too many flying buttresses and not enough gargoyles,’ commented Holtzmann. Her head tilted to the side as she squinted up.

Erin shrugged and followed the others to a side door. Must have been the Danish Art School thing. Her appreciation of architecture ended with her nodding in agreement or shaking her head in disagreement, and following the cues of whoever commented. Laugh at the right places, widening her eyes when needed, and nod intelligently when all else failed. She had only found out a few years ago that the _Sagrada Família_ was in fact a basilica and _not_ a brand of Spanish sangria as she’d previously thought. But even she could not deny the gravitas that the Brinley Gást library had as she followed Holtzmann into the library.

They stuck close inside the foyer and led by Patty, crept through the rooms and past the reception desk to a door where Patty said she’d seen the apparition. The door was made from thick wood, old and worn and framed by a pointed stone arch decorated with motifs of dogs. Their jaws hung open, feral and vicious like a warning.

‘Abandon every hope, all ye who enter here,’ said Holtzmann cheerfully.

‘I’m not sure if you’ll be able to get all that heavy equipment down the stairs,’ said Patty as she stooped to unlock the door. ‘You’re going to have to get more portable gear.’

‘Got that covered, Patz.’ Holtzmann winked at Patty’s raised eyebrow.

Holtzmann rummaged through the piles of electronics and heaved what looked like a VCR connected to a small TV out from between the mini-fridge and a Marshall amp. The bazooka was taken out too and hung onto Holtzmann’s shoulder with a strap. Holtzmann tucked the VCR and TV under her right arm and grinned. ‘Okay, I think we got everything. Let’s go!’

The door swung open with a wailing creak, freezing them in mid-step. A chill ran down Erin’s spine as a cold breeze drifted from the open doorway, brushing the hairs on the back of her neck like lingering fingertips. She swallowed the lump in her throat, unable to uproot her feet from the flagstone floor to follow Abby and Patty as they went through the opened door.

Whatever was down there was not happy and didn’t want to be disturbed.

Her stomach roiled and she jumped at the hand that clasped around hers. Erin turned to Holtzmann who studied her face with worried eyes and a frown on her mouth. Her shoulders sagged and the tension drained imperceptibly as she sought solace firm grip and an unquestioning acceptance of her unease.

‘I’m ready,’ said Erin with a nod. It was not as firm as she’d hoped, but she schooled her expression into seriousness and allowed Holtzmann to tug her to the door.

‘Don’t let go,’ said Holtzmann over her shoulder as they crossed the threshold.

Erin squeezed Holtzmann’s hand tightly. The darkness felt unnaturally thick. The light from the walled lamps weren’t bright enough to cut through the gloom. It was like wading through molasses and her flashlight flickered intermittently until Erin thumped it against her thigh. She ignored the growing trepidation that had settled at the base of her head like she was being watched. The batteries were new.

The temperature dropped dramatically as they descended down an old curving staircase. She was a scientist, not an architect, but even she knew that the wooden stairs were not part of the original building. Someone had deliberately designed the Brinley Gást without a permanent set of stairs to the basement. Was it to keep people from coming down or to keep things from going up?

‘Darling you got to let me know. Should I stay or should I go?’ Holtzmann sang quietly, humming the tune and muttering a verse from that song that felt like a precursor to a haunting.

‘Holtzmann! Stop that!’ whispered Erin furiously.

The entire staircase groaned underneath Erin and Holtzmann’s weight. Erin stilled and held her breath. One misplaced step on a rickety staircase and they could break their legs. Why were they doing this at night?

‘Erin?’ Abby’s voice drifted up from below. ‘Holtzmann?’

‘We’re on our way down.’

‘You better get down here quick.’

Erin shared a terrified look with Holtzmann and they rushed down the last few steps as quickly as they dared.

They reached the bottom where Abby and Patty was waiting for them. The PKE meter was beeping and Abby looked like she was ready to break out in a dance at the sound it made every three-seconds. Holtzmann’s mouth dropped open and she hurried over to Abby, dragging Erin with her.

‘It’s beeping!’

‘I know!’

Their voices rang out in the dark hallway and Erin stiffened at the excited discordant echoes that bounced around them. She shivered as the cold seeped through her tweed jacket.

‘Okay, once you two are done fawning over your cotton candy machine. How about I show you where this ghost is?’ interrupted Patty.

‘You’re right. Let’s go.’ Abby tilted her head for Patty to lead the way.

Erin went to follow, but stopped when she saw Abby’s wide-eyed stare of disbelief at her and Holtzmann’s joined hands. She fought against the blush on her cheeks and dropped Holtzmann’s hand, and rushed past Abby after Patty.

She slowed down once she saw Patty and breathed deeply to calm the erratic beats of her heart. Guilt caught up with her as realized that Holtzmann likely had no idea why she ran off. She had offered Erin comfort unthinkingly and Erin had paid it back by succumbing to her embarrassment. They needed to talk about that night, to address the tension whenever she so much as looked at Holtzmann, and kiss that they had shared before Patty had interrupted with a ghost sighting. Erin shook her head to clear her thoughts. Now wasn’t the time, but she was going to make time as soon as this was over.

‘The stacks is only a little further up,’ said Patty from over her shoulder. ‘Once we get through this hallway.’

The sounds of their shoes against the stone floor reverberated around the hallway in an ominous clip-clop that got louder and louder the further they ventured. The walls were stacked with old wooden desks and broken chairs, layered under a thick coat of dust and cobwebs that looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in years. The hallway narrowed into a corridor, wide enough for a single person to walk through.

The stone changed from the large yellowed limestone of the building to red brick.

‘Patty, do you know why the material for this corridor is different from the rest of the library?’ They had only known Patty for an hour or so, but Erin felt that the woman was a wealth of knowledge, general and subject-specific.

Patty paused and laid a hand on the wall as she contemplated Erin’s question. She turned and shone her flashlight at the brick that covered the corridor from floor to ceiling.

‘This corridor used to be a lot bigger and was made from the same material you see for the rest of the building.’ Patty shone her flashlight to the ground and stamped her foot on the flagstone flooring. ‘You see this? That’s the original stone, but the walls use brick. I think it was in 1954 when they built the wooden staircase. The one we came down? When they reached here they’d realized that this corridor was actually a catacomb.’

The hair on the back of Erin’s neck stood on end. Her eyes widened and she took a tiny step back from the wall.

‘Behind these walls are the catacombs of the human offerings made to appease the malevolent spirits of the wronged.’

Erin gaped at Patty in stunned silence and shuffled forward quickly, ready to be out of this corridor. ‘You didn't think to tell us something this important?’ squeaked Erin.

‘It’s general knowledge that the library was built on a witch burning site,’ Patty said from behind her. ‘Of course they were angry.’

‘I didn’t think human offerings worked,’ was Abby’s penny to the conversation, which did nothing to calm Erin’s wariness.

The corridor widened and they filed out into a long room, lined with shelves and shelves of books. The room was dank and cold, lit by old-styled chandeliers refurbished to run on electricity. Erin missed the modern sleekness of the Science library.

They walked through the room, down an aisle housing dusty tomes on Ancient Egyptians with collected appendixes of the Sumerian civilization, and past a poorly lit aisle that Patty gave a wide birth. ‘That’s the section on the American civil wall. I get the heebies whenever I go down there.’

‘The levels of psychokinetic energy is a tiny more elevated here.’ Abby frowned at the readings and hit the meter when it beeped sharply. ‘Nothing but the usual levels you’d expect of such an old building. I guess the offerings could have increased it.’

‘So I was here last night when I started hearing this moaning,’ said Patty as they moved into the section on the Byzantium Empire. ‘Thought it was two students who couldn’t keep it in their pants, ‘cause who’d want to get it on down here?’ Erin shuddered at the thought of removing even a layer of clothing here.

Holtzmann came up to Erin, a sly smirk on her face and wiggled her eyebrows. Not going to happen, willing partner or not. It hadn’t happened when she was a freshman and it wasn’t going to happen now she was a professor. Erin glanced at Holtzmann and her conviction wavered. Maybe if the library had modern heating.

Erin ran her fingers along the top of the wooden cupboard that held the catolog cards. The shine from the varnish had dulled, worn away by the years, but there was something comforting in the roughness of the wood to her. Digitized searches and indexes had been revolutionary for academia, but she missed the days when searching for that one book meant hours hunched over a tiny drawer, fingers susceptible to tiny paper cuts, and the rustle of cards as she flicked through from A to Z. Now it was all a click of a button away with the added risk of carpel tunnel.

A shiver ran down Erin as her fingers slid across something wet and slimy.

‘What the—?’ She raised her hand to her eyes, fingers covered in a green gelatinous slime that made its descent in a slow, viscous drip. ‘Eurgh, that’s disgusting.’

She shook her hand, but the liquid clung stubbornly. Whoever last used the catalog had made a mess of the system. The drawers were open, index cards stuck out and shoved back in haphazardly, but it was the slime that covered everything that as unusual.

‘Gilbert, hold still.’ Holtzmann grabbed her wrist as Abby scanned her hand with the PKE Meter. The beeping became erratic as it analyzed the green gunk.

‘Okay, so it was not like this when I was here last night.’

The entire section on the Salem witch trials was on the floor. The wooden shelves, normally packed with books were empty and lined with slime, dripping from the shelves to cover the ripped pages and leather spines that littered the floor. Erin stepped over the ruined books, careful of where she placed her heeled feet.

‘What is that?’ Abby said in awe. ‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’

‘That’s the gal I saw last night!’ added Patty with a clap.

Erin looked up and her heart seized inside her chest at the sight. Several meters ahead was a woman or what had once been a woman, regal and domineering in all its ethereal beauty as it stood in front of a curiously large section on necromancy. The only thing that showed it had already shuffled off this mortal coil was the bluish-purple tinge, and that it floated a few feet above the ground.

‘She's beautiful,’ whispered Erin, entranced by the wisps of energy that trailed like smoke of its form before dispersing into the ether.

‘A Class 4 apparition!’ Abby stepped forward like she wanted to touch it. ‘Distinct human form.’  
  
‘You do know what you're doing, right?’ asked Patty who backed away until she was stood behind Holtzmann.

‘I’m gonna try and talk to it.’

‘Careful, it may be malevolent,’ said Abby to Erin, and then to the ghost: ‘You’re gorgeous!’

And she is incredibly gorgeous, thought Erin. There was a ghost in front of her. Something that her therapist had said was a figment of her imagination, a manifestation of her confusion caused by her parent’s arguments, and a transposition of the trauma that coincided with the death of her elderly neighbor. Ms DeMille was a mean old lady. Period. But no amount of therapy could have convinced Erin that she had been crazy.

‘Make sure you get all of this.’ Erin approached the figure cautiously. ‘Hello? My name is Erin Gilbert, Doctor of Particle Physics at Columbia University—’

Erin’s eyes slammed shut as a slew of slime hit her in the face with the force of a water cannon. She stood still, hands raised, eyes and mouth clenched closed at the layer of slime that covered her like a second skin.

Hands wiped at her eyes and she cracked an eyelid open to see Abby wiping her face with the sleeve of her cardigan. Laughter bubbled up in Erin like lava rising from a volcano and she gripped onto Abby’s arms. The ghost had disappeared, but it had definitely been in front of her and the evidence was covered all over her body.

‘Oh my god, we saw a ghost! Ghosts are real!’ Erin grinned, uncaring that Abby’s attempt to clean her only smeared the slime further into her clothes. Her body felt like it had been dunked in cold corn syrup.

‘The eyes!’ yelled Holtzmann, camcorder pointed at where the apparition had been.

A dozen pair of red eyes glowed in the dim aisle. Whatever they were they didn’t look friendly, and from the sudden drop in temperature they were definitely more malicious than the vomiting viscountess.

‘Everyone move back slowly,’ whispered Abby. ‘No sudden move—’

Erin shouted, arms waving like a windmill as her foot slipped on a pool of gunk and she fell onto her back. She scrambled up onto her knees only to be hauled onto her feet by Holtzmann. Without a moment to recover she was running fast and away from the growls behind them.

‘Erin lose the heels!’ Holtzmann yelled, gripping onto Erin’s hand tightly and pulling her along.  
  
The growls sounded dangerously close. Erin chanced a glance and promptly kicked off her heels mid-run, pumping her legs faster after Abby and Patty. Normal dogs did not look like that. Not with ethereal-looking saliva dripping from dislocated jaws. The skeletal bodies and decaying flesh and ripped skin were the stuff of nightmares, but it was the eyes that chilled Erin to the bone.

They ran along the narrow corridor, past the bricked over offerings and stacked desks and chairs, through the rooms of books, and Erin cried at the sight of the wooden stairs. Holtzmann tugged insistently at Erin’s hand, and they barrelled up the stairs. The aged wood groaned in agony and Erin prayed that it endured their weight and the punishment of slamming feet. Being stuck in an inaccessible basement with dead and malevolent canines was not how she wanted to leave the world. The snapping jaws and gasping growls grew louder with every step.

Patty reached the door first, closely followed by Abby who held onto the wooden door. ‘Hurry up, you’re almost there!’

With one last pull she fell through the open doorway. She tripped over her feet and crashed into Holtzmann, sending them sprawling onto the floor.

The door slammed shut, muffling the growls and claws scrambling on the other side.  
  
Erin groaned at the pain in her knees. It had been a relationship doomed to fail: kneecaps and flagstone floors were never meant to meet. She rolled off Holtz, aware that her entire weight had flattened the other woman. The slime on Erin’s clothes stretched in stringy lines from her to Holtzmann. She stared up at the high ceiling of the library, gasping for air. She had thought of ways to get Holtzmann beneath her. Covered in ghost vomit and being chased by hellhounds had not been one of them.

***

It turned out that getting ectoplasm (as Abby had termed it) off a living body required more effort than the stuff they used on game shows. The clothes were ruined and Erin mourned the loss of her new skirt and blazer combo, but couldn’t quite feel sorry that her heels were ghost dog food. They hadn’t been fun to wear.

Erin had undressed behind a plastic screen back in the lab, peeling off her the clothes one by one she had handed them over to Abby for testing. A shower would have been heaven, but the walk to the staff changing rooms was across campus and the idea of bumping into any Physics colleagues would have been the nail on the coffin. The shower had to wait, which meant going home first.

She tapped her foot in a jaunty rhythm and tried not to sneak looks at Holtzmann next to her. The moment the elevator stopped on her apartment’s floor she launched herself out of it and towards her door. She fumbled with the lock, jiggling the key until the door opened with a click and would have gone in, but there was Holtzmann.

Erin turned, tugged at the oversized MIT hoody she wore. The grey sweatpants were a little long and had to be rolled up at the hem a few times. They were more comfortable then her work clothes, definitely covered up more than the gym shorts and t-shirt that Holtzmann had to wear when they’d to quarantined her clothes, but she was in Holtzmann’s clothing and not in the way she would have imagined. She really felt like the embodiment of beauty: hair congealed with dried ectoplasm and tied up in a ponytail, make up smudged and smeared.

‘You didn’t have to walk me up.’

‘I didn’t mind. Abby said to get you home safe, so that’s what I did.’

Erin grimaced at the reminder. Abby had ignored her refusals, had shoved Erin and Holtzmann out of the lab with a wave and wink. Damn you, Abby. ‘I’ll wash these and return them to you.’

‘Okay.’ Holtzmann nodded and rocked on her feet for a moment, hands behind her back, waiting. After a moment she rubbed the back of her neck and shrugged. ‘I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, tomorrow.’

Erin watched Holtzmann walk away. Her hand gripped the white doorframe of her apartment. Uncertainty warred inside her and a weight sat in her stomach like lead. ‘Holtz! Wait!’  
  
Holtzmann spun on the ball of her feet, eyes bright and excited. A hesitant smile played at the corners of Holtzmann’s lips and the uncertainty left Erin’s body. She wanted to see the full version of that smile.

‘Do you?’ She pointed a thumb at her apartment, shrugged and looked over her shoulder. She swallowed and tamped down on the blush that rose from her neck. God, she was bad at this as she stared at the floor. The super really needed to vacuum the hallway.

Black Doc Martins blocked the tiny bit of hallway she was examining. Erin looked up at Holtzmann, hands stuffed casually in her pockets and head tipped to the side, blue eyes soft and patient like she knew Erin needed the extra time.

How did she do that? ‘Um, you want to come in for a coffee?’ mumbled Erin, feeling very much like that time at the campus club, unsure and self-conscious, but very much hopeful for a positive answer.

The grin on Holtzmann’s face grew and she nodded vigorously, and Erin released a small sigh and smiled back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, it's been a year...
> 
> 2017 was a difficult year writing-wise. Things have been written, though not posted. A massive thank you for those who have stuck around and for indulging me in this crazy fic (it's pure nonsense, really). The kudos and comments fuelled me. Here's to a more productive 2018.

**Author's Note:**

> A year and seven months and finally something! And not a moment too late. Here's to a better 2017. 
> 
> (Dancing: inspired by my colleagues at my work's Christmas party.)


End file.
